Individual Benefits

What individual benefits does Sutherland Insurance arrange?

• Individual health and dental

  Prescription, paramedical, vision and dental coverage for staff

  View coverage →

• Disability - Injury Only

  Short-term and long-term income replacement

  View coverage →

• Critical illness insurance

  A lump sum on diagnosis of a covered condition

  View coverage →

• Business overhead expense insurance

  Fixed operating costs while an owner is disabled

  View coverage →

What are individual benefits?

Coverage a person arranges in their own name, rather than receiving it as a benefit of employment. The contract belongs to the individual, so it does not end when a job does. Sutherland Insurance places four such products through Edge Benefits.

The distinction that matters is ownership. A group plan is arranged by an employer, priced on the group and generally ends with the employment. These are priced on the individual and continue regardless of who they work for.

That makes them the route for people whose income does not come with benefits attached: the self-employed, contractors, business owners without staff, and anyone between jobs or recently retired.

How much does individual benefits cost in Ontario?

The factors that move a Canadian personal health and dental premium, in approximate order of influence, and why insurers look at each one.

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Are individual benefits required in Ontario?

No. None of the four is compulsory in Ontario. OHIP covers hospital and physician care, and these plans address costs and events it does not.

OHIP does not pay for most prescriptions taken outside hospital, dental treatment, vision correction or most paramedical services, and it does not replace income. Those are the gaps these products address.

Nothing on this page is a recommendation about which product suits a particular situation. A licensed advisor sets out what each covers and what it costs, and the decision rests with the applicant.

Who arranges individual benefits in Ontario?

People whose income does not come with a benefits plan attached. The four products are commonly held in combination rather than alone, because each leaves a gap the others fill.

A self-employed tradesperson with a leased yard might hold income protection for the household and business overhead expense for the business, because one insures earnings and the other insures rent and payroll.

Someone recently retired, or between contracts, more often starts with health and dental, because that is the cost that arrives immediately when a workplace plan ends.

A person with a family history of a listed condition may look first at critical illness, where the first tier is issued without questions about personal or family medical history.

How is an individual benefits plan arranged through Sutherland Insurance?

A licensed advisor goes through which of the four apply, then the application is completed online with Edge Benefits. Sutherland Insurance remains the broker on the plan.

Applying through a broker does not change Edge's process or its timing. It changes who reads the request, who works through the options before the form is submitted, and who is available afterwards when a claim raises a question.

Each product page sets out its own eligibility ages, benefit amounts, waiting periods and exclusions, taken from Edge Benefits' own published terms.

How do the four fit together?

Each covers a different consequence of the same event. Health and dental pays ongoing costs, income protection replaces earnings, critical illness pays a lump sum on diagnosis, and business overhead expense keeps a business's fixed costs running.

Someone unable to work through injury has three separate problems: the household's income stops, the business's rent does not, and treatment costs arrive. One product addresses one of those.

That is why they are commonly arranged together rather than chosen between, and why an advisor works through the set rather than a single product in isolation.